Hitachi Announces Luxury Ultra Thin HDTVs

Oct 23 2007, 11:21am CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Hitachi held a press conference today to announce their new line of ultra thin LCD HDTV sets. Three HDTVS will comprise the line and each of them will be only 1.5-inches (35mm) thick. Hitachi didn’t offer pricing information in the conference and only said that the new Ultra Thin HDTVs would be a premium luxury product. Hitachi also said that at least when first launched in 2008 the HDTVs would be sold through high-end home theater installers.

The line will include 32-inch, 37-inch, and 42-inch screen sizes. Hitachi has designed the Ultra Thin HDTV line to be a work of art and to show case the onscreen image as if it was artwork. The front bezel of each TV is painted from behind in a silver color to provide a depth to the paint and the sets are finished all the way around so it can be placed in the middle of a room and look good from all sides and angles.

All three HDTVs will ship with a table stand and a floor stand will be optional. Two versions of the HDTVs will be available, a monitor only and a monitor plus AV center. The onboard sound system is a 6 watt + 6 watt amplifier with the option of three modes including clear voice, surround, and bass boost.

To get the Ultra Thin HDTVs so thin, Hitachi is using a new backlighting technology called EEFL that is proprietary. Hitachi wouldn’t talk about the technology used for the backlight in any detail, citing trade secrets, but the backlight system promises a fuller color rendition with less power consumption than LED backlit HDTV sets. The only information about the backlighting process offered by Hitachi was that the system was called EEFL and used a conductive material like silver to produce the light.

The 32-inch HDTV will have a screen resolution of 1366 x 768 and will be introduced in Q1 2008, the 37-inch will be full HD with a 1920 x 1080 resolution with a Q2 2008 release and the 42-inch will have the same 1920 x 1080 resolution with a Q2 2008 release date. These TVs were announced in Japan in the Wooo line. The Wooo name will not carry over to US products. Anytime a manufacturer will only say this is a premium product, it doesn’t bode well for the price. Consider the 50-inch plasma from Hitachi costs around $3500 and is considered affordable luxury, you can expect to see prices well north of that figure.

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Shane McGlaun
Leading our review center, Shane knows technology inside out. His extensive experience in testing computer hardware and consumer electronics enable him to effectively qualify new products and trends. If you want us review your product, please contact Shane.
Shane can be contacted directly at shane@i4u.com.